Fighting between north and south has plagued thirty of Sudan's forty years of independence. The Arab Islamic north has used every trick in the book to subjugate the people of southern Sudan. They have maintained tight economic, educational, and military control. A stunning act of genocide came in 1983 when the Islamist revolutionaries in Khartoum succeeded in declaring Sharia-Islamic Law-to be the law of the land. 

The Islamist revolutionaries are fascists in savior's clothing. They do not represent the nearly one and a half billion Muslim people of the world. The Islamist revolutionaries have turned Sudan into an Islamic State and Khartoum into an Islamist Mecca. Sudan's neighbors are alarmed by these political trends. They should be. 

Iq'tul el Kufaar (kill the infidels) are words of daily conversation in the market place and in the Mosque. Mass murder, religious cleansing, torture, starvation, rape, abduction, and slavery are acts of Islamist heroism. Do these cruelties epitomize a true follower of Allah? No! They are the ideals of Sudanese Islamist fascism.

Sudanese young men who fight in this holy war-this jihad-are promised heavenly rewards. When a man gives his life in the jihad, for example, he believes that ten sensuous virgins awaiting his pleasure will receive him into heaven. When I heard about that, I asked myself what similar reward a martyred woman might receive. Might she awake from death only to find herself in the hands of ten lusty men? Most women I know would run from a "heaven" like that!

Though you may laugh at the folly of such obviously false promises, remember: the Islamist despotism flowing from Khartoum is more cunning and wicked than South Africa's Apartheid government ever was. And it is Sudan's major export.

The Islamist crusade, however, is not solely to blame for the genocide in Sudan. Sudan's neighbors and the southern rebels are guilty, too. Brutal inter-factional fighting among southern rebels has shattered the lives of the southern people. At the same time that the rebel factions are waging turf warfare, they are trying to control the population by terrorizing the countryside and driving families from their homes. The self-proclaimed Sudan People's Liberation Army-the SPLA-did not flow from the grassroots people. It washed over them like a tidal wave and then broke into factions. 

Sudan's neighbors cry, "Peace!" on the one hand and counsel war on the other. By arming the rebel groups, they hope to stop Islamist fascism from spreading across Africa. It is a vain hope. When the southerners have destroyed each other, southern Sudan will fall like a ripe fruit into the hands of the Islamists. 

Death and Destruction in the South

Southern Sudan has rich natural resources and a diverse food production system. Most people live well on milk from their cattle, on the vegetables they raise, and on the wild game they hunt. The people know how to survive lean years. They have no defense against man-made famine. During man-made famine, people starve in the face of plenty. 

Both the Islamist government and the SPLA use famine-induced genocide to subdue the population. They know that people who are starving, that people who are wandering from their homeland in search of food, have neither the will nor the strength to rise up in defense of their most basic human rights. The immorality of man-made famine is beyond comprehension. It kills the body and destroys the spirit. 

Here is what I mean. The increasing dependence of southern Sudan on relief food has turned the whole society into a nation of beggars. They are totally humiliated. A woman named Nyapiuni was standing in a long line at a relief distribution center in Waat. She spoke to me. I will never forget the look in her eyes as she said, "I hate begging."

Famine is the weapon; epidemic disease is the fallout cloud. When the population of an area explodes with refugees in search of relief, epidemics of small pox, dysentery, influenza, typhus, Malaria, yellow fever, typhoid fever, Tuberculosis, Kala Azar, syphilis, and HIV-AIDS follow. 

Famine and epidemic strike hardest at women and children. In southern Sudan today, one third of all newborn babies die. The vast majority of those who survive infancy will not live to see a fifth birthday. 80% of all southern Sudanese children are malnourished. 

In many other ways death is the constant companion of southern Sudanese children. These girls and boys know that when they walk through the woods and grasslands, any one step they take could activate a land mine. Day and night, children of all ages listen for the sound of warplanes-and the bombs that inevitably follow. The children are always on guard, ready to hide from the rebel raiding parties that will burn their village, steal their food, and rape or kill or kidnap them.

Both armies routinely abduct civilians. Children are prize catches. The SPLA needs boys and young men to fill its ranks; the Arabs need slaves to work the fields. An African person is sold as an animal in the north for $15 and made to work the fields-or worse. African slave girls as young as eight years old are used for sexual pleasure within the Arab communities where they are held. Their genitals are mutilated according to East African Islamic custom. I saw with my own eyes little southern Sudanese girls who had been subjected to ritual genital mutilation. The tender parts of their genitals had been cut away and the wound crudely stitched closed-all without anesthesia. Many girls die of infection before the wound heals. This horrifying practice is unknown in southern Sudanese communities. 

No Safe Haven in the North

To escape the war, large numbers of southern Sudanese people flee north. But in the desert cities of the Arabs, they are no better off than they were in the south. Children of southern Sudan become street children in the northern towns. Denied affection, education, and assistance, these children survive by their own wits. They become experts in crime and violence. Many are caught by the police and tried as criminals under Islamic law. Crucifixion, amputation, or some other cruel punishment is the only justice such children receive. 

Some of the African refugees are held in large camps in the desert outside of the northern towns. In 1993, I slipped into one of the worst refugee camps near Khartoum. I had to disguise myself and dress in rags, because the guards will not allow outsiders to enter the camp. While I was inside this camp, I noticed some healthy-looking children who were kept segregated from the rest and given better food. I was sickened to learn that these African children-and others like them in other camps-are northern Sudan's "living blood bank". Every two weeks, a measure of their blood is taken and given to casualties among the northern soldiers. The little bodies of these refugee children, captives of a fanatical Islamist government, are commodities to be consumed-literally-to the last drop of blood.

Life in any northern refugee camp is hell on earth. Behavior considered deviant in southern Sudan-sexual violence and abuse, rape, humiliation, assault, molestation, involuntary prostitution-is part of everyday life in these camps. Again, it is the women and children who suffer the most. 

Counting the Human Cost of the War

A generation of Sudanese young people has been taught that they can build a future for themselves with the tools of destruction. In blindly following political saviors, they have forged the very chains that now bind them to lives of violence and poverty. 

A few months ago, I stood facing the American Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. The memorial consists of two long, adjoining black granite walls inscribed with the names of the 58,000 dead or missing soldiers. It is not a monument to victory. It is a tombstone. Most of the visitors I observed touched the wall with their hands. Many had tears in their eyes. 

A similar memorial built in Sudan would be nearly thirty times longer than the one in Washington. But it will never be built. We could never collect the names to inscribe. If we asked any of the SPLA leaders (or "comrades" as they call themselves) for the names of their dead, we would find that there is no record of the individual, human cost of Sudan's civil war. The "comrades" would explain it away, saying, "Loss of life is the high price we must all pay for the liberation." The comrades, however, are not paying the price. They are comfortably removed from the field of battle, building their own kingdoms. Many have become enormously rich in cattle, sheep, goats, and women taken by force from the very people they claim to be liberating! Peace is not on the comrades' agenda!

It is the grassroots people who are paying the high price of "liberation". And if there's one thing the world can learn from the many "wars of liberation" that have been fought during the 20th century, it is that the grassroots people pay and pay and pay. But they never take delivery of the goods. 

What Lies Ahead?

The Islamist Revolutionaries promised the people of Sudan a better future, but delivered a reign of terror. Now the south has lost all trust in the north and the rift between the two regions widens every day.

The comrades of the Sudan People's Liberation Army promised the people a better future, but the reality they have created foretells otherwise. They have given southern Sudan hunger, terrorism, and destruction. They have condemned the people to perpetual poverty. They have either killed or driven away nearly everyone with education and experience and have condemned southern Sudan to an appalling Dark Age. 

Is it any wonder that the grassroots people of southern Sudan-the common people of the villages-have given up on empty political promises of a better future? More than a decade of war has taught them that money spent on machine guns and land mines does not return the same dividend that comes from money invested in food production, health care, and education. The common people have lost everything to the war, but they have learned something important: Their future lies within themselves. 

The Grassroots Women

That's why, in spite of the difficulties ahead, I believe that peace is coming to Sudan. It is coming from the grassroots people. I saw this with my own eyes during my travels. Wherever I went in southern Sudan, I was overwhelmed by the energy of village women. They have experienced war. They have experienced despair. They have had enough. They want peace and they are willing to work for it. Right now, grassroots women are struggling to bring out the best in themselves, their families, and their communities. They have begun to see that peace is more than the absence of war. Peace involves activity that promotes understanding and service to the community. 

My work with women in Sudanese villages and refugee camps centers on teaching people to trust each other. I try to build relationships, to capitalize on the existing skills of the local people, and to organize and train women to help themselves. When I first met the women who call themselves the South Sudanese Women Association, I thought of the little song, "It Only Takes a Spark to Get a Fire Going." Though these women wanted to address the problems in their village, they didn't know where to begin. Yet they had that vital spark of self-determination. 

Today, the South Sudanese Women Association is setting the grassroots women on fire for change. They cry for peace, justice, and freedom, and are transcending tribal allegiances and building supportive networks. They are establishing in the villages committees of local women to organize and administer self-help services and programs. These women are not waiting for some outside agency to alleviate their sufferings. They are doing the job themselves. 

In many villages, the women are laboring together and planting small community gardens near the rivers. It was exciting for me to see these women experience the joy of doing something productive for themselves. I'll never forget how the women of Akobo enjoyed eating cabbage and sukuma-wikki for the first time. Sukuma-wikki is a green vegetable native to Kenya. We held a little food tasting party and I showed them some ways to mix the new vegetable with the dura grains they already had. 

Adaptive strategies like introducing new vegetables into the community diet will reduce Akobo's dependence on traditional supplies of milk and meat. This is important for the women for two reasons. First, the traditional foods are no longer plentiful. Second, the traditional family support mechanism that once accomplished the farming, hunting, and food gathering has changed. In the worst of the war-torn regions of southern Sudan, the women out-number the men three to two-and many of these men are either very old or very young. It can truly be said, "Village life has ceased." 

The majority of southern Sudanese are Nilotic people. It is part of our culture to seek wives for our sons from neighboring villages. This custom links ethnic groups through marriage and places women in a strong position of influence within the community. This is why, historically, it has been the women who have turned hostile people-groups toward reconciliation. Obviously, the present shortage of male heads of households has enlarged the influence of women in grassroots communities. 

This change means that southern Sudan's grassroots women can become a strong national voice for reconciliation. If a few village women can bring hostile people-groups together, think of what thousands of women linked across southern Sudan can do. I do not believe I exaggerate when I say that Sudan's future hope lies in the hands and heads and hearts of her grassroots women. 

Helping People Help Themselves

To succeed, however, the women-and all those who are working to re-build southern Sudan-need help and support from a network of international friends. That's why South Sudanese Friends International (SSFI) was founded in 1994. SSFI is a non-profit, charitable organization promoting democratic ideals and self-reliant living in southern Sudan. SSFI's financial support comes from individuals, religious communities, and charitable organizations. In spite of the continuing civil war, much can be done to provide long-term solutions to the problems facing Sudan's grassroots people. SSFI puts Christian principles into action through our involvement with local people in southern Sudanese communities, helping them develop, manage, and evaluate their own education, community development, and humanitarian aid projects. 

If you would like to receive more information about the growing grassroots peace movement in southern Sudan and how you can help the grassroots people, please contact me.